Hans Hofmann

de Helmut Friedel

Hans Hofmann (1880-1966) is one of the most important figures of postwar American art, for both his own abstract paintings and his influence as the legendary teacher of generations of artists in Germany, New York, and Provincetown. His presence in New York, a link to Wassily Kandinsky, the Cubists, and Fauves, catalyzed the movement ultimately known as Abstract Expressionism, whose influence still pervades the aesthetic categories and practices of art today. This volume features essays on Hofmann's life and work by Helmut Friedel and Tina Dickey; excerpts from Hofmann's own statements; full documentation of his career (including chronology, selected bibliography, and comprehensive list of solo and group exhibitions); and thirty-two large colorplates of works from 1942 to 1965 by this supreme colorist, his finest paintings from European and American collections. They richly represent his unique painting style, which conveys a deeply personal experience of color that has lost none of its power to fascinate the viewer.